Some treasures are better left unearthed, lest the cold light of day reveal them to be something less than life-changing and invaluable. Originally released in a 300-count, LP-only batch in 2002, Hollinndagain scrapbooks selected live performances in Jersey City, Austin, Nashville, and NYC that same year by a pre-Pazz-and-Jop-charting Animal…
Of all the cameos on the Teddybears’ Soft Machine full-length, Neneh Cherry’s “Yours to Keep” read-through is the Abba-est. By the coda, she’s so enchanted with the thing’s happy-ass-ness that she breathes a satisfied, geeky “yeah!” as the final sound. These guys have quickly become more important to TV advertising…
Splitting the difference between postrock and ambient metal, Red Sparowes’ tired, portenteous seltzer-soaks barely register, and Made Out of Babies routinely knit delightful, hard-rock garrotes using the classic quiet-to-loud form. Battle of Mice is a teamup of the former’s axeman/keyboardist and the latter’s valkyrie howler, among others. “The Lamb and…
You’d think Dan Bejar had enough work on his damn plate already. Yet downtime from the New Pornographers (where he is a bit player) and Destroyer (where he is the whole enchilada) led him to form a supergroup with Frog Eyes and Wolf Parade principals. Here Swan Lake whips up…
You’ve seen Joan Rivers and Oprah Winfrey wearing it on their daytime talk shows, you’ve caught most rappers and hype-men flossin’ with it on album and mixtape covers, and you might have even purchased some for your S.O. or round-the-way boy or girl. But where does bling come from, and…
This Miami band’s brand-new EP, Synchromy, plays sort of like the soundtrack to a TV game show featured in a retro-spaghetti sci-fi flick circa 1944. Or is that 2014? “I’ve always been fascinated by music that confuses me,” says Feathers bandleader Eddie Alonso. “When I listen to something and I…
“It looks on the first face of it that maybe this isn’t so hip,” admits Andrea Marcovicci, referring to her cabaret show titled Andrea Sings Astaire. “But what’s been happening is that young people come to a performance and then go out and rent every Fred Astaire movie.” Netflix, take…
It’s official: Laundry Bar is single-handedly fomenting a local drum ‘n’ bass revival. Recent weeks have seen DJ sets by kings of the genre like Florida’s own AK1200, jazz-borrowing Londoners Aquasky, and one of the cofounders of the legendary Metalheadz imprint, Doc Scott. This Friday another Brit brings the choons:…
In late August, the New York Times identified a South Korean man as the star of a YouTube.com video. In it Lim Jeong-hyun (calling himself “Funtwo”) played Pachelbel’s Canon on his electric guitar. The axe wizard has mad skills, but what really sparked the media investigation is that the video…
The laws of music journalism state that when a precociously good new band comes along, one must harp on the members’ ages. So, okay, blah blah blah, the four members of be your own PET, from Nashville, are all teenagers, the oldest just barely legal. Great — now that’s out…
Three master congueros, each with a distinctive style, lend the Conga Kings’ accelerated pulse, but the name is meant to highlight the heart of the group, not describe the entire body. As do all the top percussionists in Latin jazz, this conga drum triumvirate displays a deep sense of context…
Detroit is known for producing its share of renowned musicians. Rock-star bad-asses Alice Cooper and Iggy Pop and Motown legends the Temptations and Diana Ross all paved the way for what would become known as “good music” today. It’s no wonder that the Detroit Cobras — hailing from such fertile…
Way back before the King Khan and BBQ Show ever began, Mark Sultan (a.k.a. BBQ) and King Khan (then referred to as the Blacksnake) were in a Canadian garage band known simply as the Spaceshits. Ten years and several continents later — after Khan had fostered a faux-celebrity explosion in…
Like some unseen beast that emerges only in shadows to claim its prey, indie rock stalks Miami with as much Omaha, Nebraska soil between its toes as sand. Four-piece Whatever Happened to the Dinosaurs and their compatriots in Blue Moon, both from Miami, do their absolute best to channel Bright…
Awe-inspiring traditional African beats fuse with contemporary reggae-rock sounds when Ba Cissoko and his group decide to jam. Born into a musical family in West Africa’s Guinea-Bissau, Ba Cissoko is a master of the regional 21-string harp-lute called the kora. Kourou Kouyaté, Sékou Kouyaté, and Ibrahim Bah round out the…
Women are positioning themselves to stick it to men once and for all. Not content with bum-rushing the academic world by earning degrees, females are targeting anything considered male-sacrosanct, including prog-metal. Under the constant threat of being completely written off as the dumber sex, men must start to enhance their…
It’s not often you’re handed the opportunity to receive some express dentistry while giving to charity. Spikefest is a gig to benefit Dirty Rotten Imbeciles guitarist Spike Cassidy, whose recent colon cancer diagnosis (and possible metastasis) eighty-sixed a 2006 tour. While on forced hiatus from D.R.I., drummer Rob Rampy has…
Until Northerners rode the railroads into South Florida in the 1920s and 1930s, and Hispanics followed them to the area in the 1950s, Miami was a small fishing town with a distinctly Southern sound. Since 1992, amid the salsa, soca, and swing of urban Miami, Michael Roy of Immanuel Presbyterian…
After six years dedicated to solo outings and relentless touring (which didn’t stop rumors of an imminent breakup), the Colombian rock duo formed by Andrea Echeverri and Hector Buitrago finally emerged with an album of new material, Oye, which has the band returning to the more acoustic roots of earlier…
It would be tempting to tag the Monday Photo’s song “Fall” as a cynical appropriation of the Mancunian era, if not for singer Leo Marcelo’s breathless enthusiasm for his source material. “We love New Order,” he says. “I just love the feeling in their music — the sense of sadness…
Taught to Be Taut Ska. Go ahead, laugh if you will. Much like a current genre label of the same length (hint: It begins with e and ends with o), it quickly became a musical four-letter word as soon as it appeared on mainstream radar. But something like Darwinism applies…
Best known for incredibly catchy punk songs about murder and monsters, Misfits/Samhain mastermind Glenn Danzig is the only alumnus from hardcore’s original old-school scene to land an album at No. 1 on Billboard’s classical album chart, with 1993’s Black Aria. More sophisticated and eclectic, Black Aria II is instrumental, but…
